Just a reminder, if you comment on my blog by typing "username.livejournal.com" in the Website field, it will automatically use your LJ-provided OpenID and name and your comments won't get stuck in the approval queue. Assuming, of course, that you've previously commented at least once in my LiveJournal.

Nurd.status: geeky

LiveJournal supports OpenID, so I've set up OpenID authentication on my blog back to your LiveJournal accounts. When prompted to login, just enter username.livejournal.com, and LiveJournal will prompt you to allow an association with my blog once or forever. Because I did some MySQL-fu, if you ever previously commented in my LJ it will be associated with your normal LJ username instead of the full OpenID URI, and all of your past comments. Let me know if you have any questions.

I'm still working on fixing my theme for threading support.

Current Location: 
Nurd.status: productive

I've alluded to this in comments, but I've started blogging on a self-hosted Wordpress install at http://blog.ultranurd.net/. My inaugural post is here.

As you may note, I imported my entire LiveJournal archive into Wordpress, including comments; if you commented in a public post in my LiveJournal, your LJ username and a link to your LiveJournal (but not your usericon) appear with the text of your comment (although unfortunately without full threading)..

I will not be posting here anymore, although I will continue to use my account to comment on your LiveJournals, as I have for the past 3.5 years of nearly non-existent blogging from me.

Please let me know if you have any layout/style suggestions, or if you have trouble leaving comments or other potential technical issues - this is a brand-spanking-new Wordpress install, so I haven't had a chance to test everything. I am planing to customize my theme a bit more.

Should I set up an auto-post feed to link posts here? I was leaning away from that, so I don't get comments in two places.

Nurd.status: productive
Current Music: Chargers vs. Steelers

Off to Mali to see my sister for two weeks. There will be pictures after I get back July 10th. In the meantime, I will continue not posting in my LJ :oD.

Tags: travel
Current Location: Bamako, Mali
Nurd.status: excited

And now, the online fun of Mario Kart!

My friend code is 4339-2990-3722.

The old tracks from the N64 version are still deep in my brain.

For some reason, I've found "drifting" to be much easier with the Wiil than with a traditional controller, from say Double Dash. They may have just made it easier.

The problem with the Wiil is gripping it while applying enough pressure to hold down the accelerator; too much of that and my forearm gets tired fast.

Tags: video games
Nurd.status: amused

I got Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the game for which I bought the Wii.

My friend code is 0087-2039-4826.

I've played a bit with the single-player modes, and it's bring back great memories of middle school wasted on the original N64 version.

Tags: video games
Current Location: home
Nurd.status: amused

Riding home today, I heard geese. Between that and the Spring Forward, it's starting to feel like the end of winter! Which is a little bit sad, as winter is my favorite season - except in Boston, where it rains too much and snows too little. Stupid global warming.

Tags: animals, seasons
Current Location: home
Nurd.status: peaceful
Current Music: "Get Down Moses" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

I'm about to head to my polling place (the Hellenic Cultural Center) and bubble in the oval next to Barack Obama.

I originally decided that I would vote for him if he ran after I read his autobiography Dreams From My Father early last year; it wasn't until MA moved the primary date up to Super Duper Tuesday that I thought that my vote might actually matter. Previously, the MA primary would probably have been too late to decide anything, and I had no worries about MA voting for anyone other than the eventual Democratic candidate.

As for Obama himself, I like his stance on technology and openness (which earned him the endorsement of Lawrence Lessig), as well as his realistic troop-withdrawal plan, and his repeated willingness to negotiate with everyone from belligerent foreign states to Republicans in order to get things done.

A number of my LJ friends have already posted better explanations than this; my peers seem to be going overwhelmingly for Obama. You can see a sample of them as written by ccommack, sammka, and carpenter, among many others.

It is eerie to me how this election is converging towards the plot of the last season of The West Wing.

I only hope my polling place has I Voted stickers.

Tags: politics
Nurd.status: excited

I realized yesterday that I was 25.25 years old on the 25th. Nifty.

Tags: math, me
Nurd.status: contemplative

Thanks to jere7my's [FUN] post, I went to the absolutely excellent Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton concert at Johnny D's in Davis Square.

P&S opened (am I the only one who thinks Storm looks like Steve Jobs?), but they did backup on at least half of Coulton's songs. I was introduced to some amusing new music, so I bought a P&S CD and a shirt to add to my Witty T-Shirts line. It also means I can go one more day without doing laundry.

Coulton played a number of the songs that I had heard, most importantly "Code Monkey" (my personal anthem), but also "I Feel Fantastic", "Skullcrusher Mountain", "Re: Your Brains", plus some new-to-me songs. I'll have to get the Thing A Week boxed set, I think; I was out of cash at the concert.

The audience participation was what made it so great - definitely a big geek crowd. The venue is such that I was in the standing area in the back, but I am tall and remembered my glasses, so it mattered little.

Thanks to a poster in the Johnny D's mens room, I learned that a Malian griot is performing there in two weeks; I will definitely have to go to that concert.

Tags: culture, geekery, music
Nurd.status: content